


Song of the Open Road

by amclove



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Abuse, Domestic Violence, F/F, M/M, Road Trip, kevin has a cute bf in college, ronnie and betty established relationship, self harm tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 19:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14479629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amclove/pseuds/amclove
Summary: Road trips are like a grocery store at one a.m., or a beach at sunset: they create an ethereal feeling deep within yourself, and sometimes that makes you do crap you'd never normally do. Jughead learned this lesson first hand the summer before his senior year, when he decided to leave town with Archie Andrews. Mistake number one.





	1. I think whoever I see must be happy.

**Author's Note:**

> This story has self-harm mentions and I'm saying so in case anyone here can't handle that. Thank you, and enjoy! :)

_The earth expanding right hand and left hand,_   
_The picture alive, every part in its best light,_   
_The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not_

_wanted,_   
_The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the_

_road._

_I think heroic deeds were all conceiv’d in the open air, and all free_

_poems also,_   
_I think I could stop here myself and do miracles,_   
_I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever_

_beholds me shall like me,_   
_I think whoever I see must be happy._

— “Song of the Open Road, IV”

By Walt Whitman


	2. The Picture Alive

     Jughead took some comfort in the knowledge that time is a relevant construct. In one city, it is nearly four in the morning, while in another across the globe it is 11:32. _Tomorrow_ won’t come because his tomorrow is someone else’s _today_. It’s all relevant.

     That’s why for all the years it had occurred in Jughead’s life, summer coming to an end hadn’t made much of a difference to his happiness one way or the other. School was something he dealt with, he got through it, and then it was June. It passed quickly, or dragged incessantly; there was really no in between. He had very few grey areas in his life.

     When the leaves fell outside, he dressed in very nearly the same thing he chose to wear in each other season. It had no effect on him what the weather was; why should it, when he couldn’t control it? But it was that month again in which the air became just a little bit chillier, crisper, on the edge of biting color into his pallor. His usual beanie sat atop his hair, hiding the gentle curls beneath. He preferred the cold, to tell the truth. He could always add layers, but what were people expected to do in the heat? Strip to their skin? Not his thing.

     He hated all things _prep_ and _pep_. School functions made Jughead queasy, quite literally, and he despised any sort of gathering with his classmates such events would inevitably entail. Rallies were the worst offense, during which he would normally sit at the top of the bleachers, his laptop or notebook on his lap to scribble notes, doodles, curses. The pounding of feet was drowned out by the beat of drums in his head.

     He didn’t date. By the end of sophomore year, Jughead had been a Single Pringle for a successful 16 years, and he held this fact in high regard. When he mentioned this to his closest friend, Betty, she only laughed. Pringles are never single, she’d teased him. He’d replied that his metaphor had clearly been missed on her part, flown right over her pretty blond head into the Sweetwater River to drown.

     It was going well, his education; his writing and by extension his blog (where he spoke about town issues and generally gave his opinion on things no one except he and Betty cared about); his low-key interest in music. He couldn’t sing a note, Jesus, no; but Radiohead, Rancid… He knew the drum layer to nearly all their songs.

     So, yeah. It was all fine. Usually, when asked, he’d say he was fine, maybe on a better day and he was feeling wild _okay_. But Riverdale hadn’t felt like home since he was a kid, and getting out sounded pretty damn good. He was sure he wouldn’t ever escape, until the summer going into his senior year of high school. But we’ll get to that.

     He was to be 17 on the 22nd of December, and while this didn’t mean much, he always had one thing to keep him going: his summer holiday after senior year would be spent out of this God-forsaken town, when he would be 18. He had always looked forward to that date as the one to transform him into an adult, in the eyes of the law. (Granted, he still had to get through the rest of junior year and part of the next, but nuance.) All his savings were in place for a used car, and when he finally bought it he would get the hell out of Dodge.

     But then he’d been dragged to a football game.

     “It’s the last of the year, Juggie,” Betty had informed him, in that pleading way she had. “You’ve got to come with me. Kevin’s going, and Ronnie…”

     “As spectacular as I’m sure it will be,” Jughead said, patting the hand she’d placed onto his upper-arm, “I have better things to do than attend a game of American ball and foot.”

     “Such as?”

     “Updating my website. It’s been ages.”

     “Jughead, you’re on the blog _right now_ ,” Betty said. “You’re literally typing about this conversation!”

     “Hey! This is _private_!” Jughead quipped, shutting the laptop’s screen hastily. He grinned, though, and Betty laughed.

     “Come on, Juggie. One game. Last of our junior year. What’ve you got to lose?”

     “Brain cells.” Her big eyes somehow pulled wider, and Jughead pushed out a stream of annoyed air. “Fine,” he relented. Betty squealed happily and hugged him. “Jesus, Bets. You’d think this is a ticket to meet a young DiCaprio.”

     “Shut up,” she said. “This is going to be great. You’ll see.”

     And she’d acted so certain too, so Jughead went along with it, and her to the game on Friday night. He would so much rather be anywhere but there, but Betty didn’t ask for things all that often and if going to a waste-of-time football match (Scrimmage? Tussle?) would make his best friend smile, what the hell, right?

     See, now, this sounded like a very generous and considerate thing for Jughead to do. He’d just forgotten in his friend’s hype that football was probably one of the most boring sports, like, ever, and he detested it. This was a sparkling bit of his character that hadn’t, in fact, changed in the past few years, but he unfortunately came to realise it only when he’d been sat on those bleachers for verging-on 32 minutes and attempting to keep his internal boredom from leaking onto his face.

     Betty whacked either her girlfriend Veronica’s arm or his whenever basically anything remotely interesting happened. Like Jughead, Kevin wasn’t a fan of football, but his perk was getting to watch some of the fittest boys in school run around in tights. Not a bad deal, really.

     It was at the halfway mark—creatively referred to as _half-time_ —that Jughead was in desperate need of sustenance. Plus, for once, his ass and legs were actually asleep, something he’d thought to have conquered years back from his infinite and dependable supply of laziness.

     He shrugged his jacket off, pulling up the sleeves of his black long-sleeve. “I’m getting a soda. Too bad they don’t sell beer at concessions, huh?”

     “Jug, we’re high-schoolers,” Betty said with a raised brow.

     “We’re also not getting any younger,” Jughead rejoined. Since he could debate, Jughead had fought that it made no sense for a drinking age to be 21 when he could be recruited for war by the great US of A and die at 18 without ever having been given a legal glass of bourbon. Bullshit. He moved past the group, flicking a hand behind himself when Kevin called to his back that he wanted a box of Skittles, please and thank you.

     The line for snacks was way too long, winding far past the reach of Jughead’s patience, so he turned right back around to go instead into the school building. He checked his pockets to be sure a trip to its vending machines wouldn’t be in vain and was pleased to find that he had a couple dollars.

     He spotted new graffiti on one of the benches; it must have been done only yesterday or that morning, if it hadn’t been painted over yet. By this point in the year, the custodial staff must be waiting for the summer to do all that shit. Jughead walked closer to examine it, unconsciously slipping the camera from his bag to get a photo if need be.

     _what it is to be quiet, and yet still breathing._

Surprised, he nearly took a step back. He recognized the line from a poem. He had favorites, all stored in a master-list inside his brain. “Notes on the Below” was somewhere on it, written in the calligraphic lettering he saved for poetry.

     He shook his head and continued toward the building; the sun was setting and it would be dark soon. The closest machines were down the hall and right from the entrance; he hoofed it there in slight worry that a teacher would see him and assume him to be a vandal. Not that he would be necessarily offended, just Ms. Benson was a bit trigger-happy when it came to pepper-spray, if her stories about life back in wild Ohio were anything to go by.

     He leaned on the machine in the middle, typing in the code for a bottled water. So much for soda. As he was bending over to grab it from the bottom slot, he heard footsteps coming from behind him. Jughead stood, forcing himself into nonchalance to do so slowly. When he turned, just barely, he saw that it was a member of the football team. Number 9, read his jersey.

     The jock nodded Jug’s way; he nodded back just to see what it would feel like. It felt ironic, he found out, and seeing as satire was his reason for doing most things in his life, he couldn’t help but grin just a little.

     “Think we’re going to win tonight?” Number 9 asked him. He must have mistaken Jughead’s laughing smile for friendliness. Fan-fucking-tastic.

     “Oh, sure. Sure. I’m not much of a football guy myself but my friends seem to think a win’s just around the corner,” Jughead told him. He recognized the jock, of course; he stayed away from these things but not so much so that he couldn’t recall a face from the hallways, especially one so chiseled and popular as this. He just couldn’t place the face with a _name_. He also couldn’t believe how close he was to small-talk, another thing he hated to engage in.

     “Yeah?” The red-head chose his drink: a bottle of apple juice. It reminded Jughead too much of his childhood, when he along with his sister had a home with their parents. His mother’s lilting voice, the occasional absence of whiskey on his father’s breath. “You been to many games?”

     “No. Not my thing,” Jughead said for the second time. Repeat: He hated small-talk. It made his skin crawl. The sooner he could extract himself from this situation the better. And he still needed the Skittles for Kevin. He rooted around in his jeans for an extra dollar or two, but knew then he’d spent what little he’d had on the water. Which should be in alienable right, by the way; what a ridiculous notion that he should be expected to pay for _water_ , of all the—But that was another article on his blog and not something he should be getting wrapped up in again right this moment. “Shit,” he muttered, beating a rapid rhythm against his pockets.

     “What?”

     “Don’t have enough cash to get my buddy…” Jughead stopped himself. As if this guy cared at all about Kevin’s unfortunate luck, or Jughead’s eternal lack of bills for that matter. “It doesn’t matter. Good game, man.” He began to walk back the way he’d come in, but the jock spoke up.

     “Hey, I’ve got a couple dollars you can use, if you need them,” he said.

     Jughead slowed, looking at the red-head with some surprise. “You don’t have to do that.”

     “Sure I don’t, but I want to.” He pulled out the cash and held it out to Jughead in a silent offer. Jug was almost sure this was a prank, but found he didn’t care either way. So he stepped forward and accepted the money, noting mildly how the jock’s hand retracted when their fingertips brushed. He laughed and it was so soft that it was almost inaudible, awkwardness coloring what little sound was there. “You can pay me back, or whatever.”

     “Thanks, man.” The red-head nodded, and Jug could see that he was about to head back out. Without thinking, he said, “Hey, uh, I didn’t catch your name.”

     9 looked taken aback, as though not used to someone not knowing who he was. If it were possible, and if his smiling brown eyes were anything to go by, it seemed like he found it oddly refreshing. He extended a hand. “I’m Archie. Archie Andrews.”

     “Archie Andrews.” Jughead’s eyes flickered over his frame once, swift and efficient as they shook. He couldn’t completely believe that a well-known jock-type was actually showing qualities apparent in a decent human being. “Well, I’m Jughead Jones. Pleasure.”

     “Yeah.” Archie took back his hand and cleared his throat quietly. “I guess I’d better get back out there. See you… around?”

     “Sure. Don’t see why not.” He leaned against the vending machine, then realised something. He bent down and brought the apple juice out from the slot. The jock had forgotten his bottle. Jughead looked at it in his hand, then tossed it up into the air. It landed back in his palm with ease. He’d bring it to Archie, it was the polite thing to do. Besides, wouldn’t the other football players freak and his friends get a hoot out of him approaching one of _those_ guys. What a catastrophe. And Jughead sure did love those.

     Jug made it back to the field just as the next half was starting. Spotting Archie by the edge, he walked to the home team’s bench with the bottle lifted as though making a toast.

     “You forgot this,” he informed Archie, signature smirk on his lips.

     Archie looked his way and, seeing the apple juice, dropped his head to laugh. “Of course I did. I can be kind of out of it sometimes.”

     “I won’t hold it against you. Do I still owe you that dollar?”

     “No, it’s alright,” Archie assured him with a grin. “I trust your friend needed those Skittles more than I need my money.”

     “Knowing Kev’, he very well might.” Jughead tried not to squint at Archie. They were talking like friends. “Thanks,” he said, uncertain.

     “No problem at all.” Coach called for a talk before the game resumed, so Archie sent Jughead one final raised-eyebrows smile and yanked the helmet over his head to meet with his team.

     Jughead dug a combat-booted foot into the dirt, spinning to go up to his place on the bleachers. When he got there, he saw that his friends were each staring at him quite openly.

     “Feel free to fuck off,” he said.

     Betty’s eyes were bugging. “You were talking to Archie Andrews!”

     “ _That’s_ who that was?” Jug replied in an exaggerated stammer. Betty rolled her aforementioned eyes at his sarcasm.

     “We just didn’t know you guys were friendly,” Ronnie tried to help her.

     “We aren’t,” Jughead said, a bit too snappishly. “I’m not a friendly person, anyway.” He noticed the box still in his hands and shoved it Kevin’s way, across the girls. They shared a grin.

     “Yeah,” Ronnie nodded.

     “Definitely the worst,” Betty agreed sagely.

* * *

 

_“Daddy’s drunk again,” Jellybean whispers. She’s crawled into her brother’s bed and wiggled her way beneath his blankets, and it isn’t the first time. She’s only six and her eyes are glassy as they sear into Jughead’s through the dark._

_“I know, Bean,” he says. He wraps a protective arm around her skinny frame. He’s only 12. Why should he be the one to do this? Why can’t he have a normal father who burns burgers on a grill and not cigarettes into his son’s arm? “It’ll be okay.”_

_They hear his stumbling, the curses, their mother’s loud silence. She’d long-ago given up trying to fix her husband, and it had led their children to sleep in one bed or sometimes in the closet to avoid the only father they had._

_“He won’t hurt you again, will he?” Jellybean asks softly, her voice tight with fear._

_“Can’t say,” Jughead says honestly. “But I promise he won’t hurt you, okay?”_

* * *

 

     As per usual Saturday morning tradition, Jughead and the gang went for breakfast at Pop’s Diner. They slid into the booth they’d occupy since they were kids and ordered the same plates they always did. It was a comforting routine, one Jug was sure to miss if he ever got out of Riverdale, but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep him fly-trapped to this shit-hole.

     Jughead sipped his coffee, black, while his friends talked. Betty sat to his left, Ronnie and Kevin across the way. They’d grown up together, and when Veronica had moved in from New York she’d become a quick and welcome addition to their close-knit group. Growing up with so many familial issues should’ve made Jughead weary, and it did in some ways, but in others he knew that a family should mean safety, and with the help of the three people around him, he was making up for what he’d lacked in blood all those years.

     “I’m thinking Paris,” Ronnie said. “Thoughts, babe?”

     “Well, _I’ve_ obviously never been there,” Betty said, “but do you really think we could pull it off?”

     “I don’t know; I just don’t want to spend another summer in Riverdale. You know?” Veronica sighed. “It’s always the same, and as much as I love you all, it’s getting old.”

     “I feel that…”

     Kevin laughed. “Jughead, all you do is write in your bedroom with the curtains drawn, summer or not.”

     “Your point?”

     They shook their heads, grinning, while the classic bell above Pop’s door chimed to signal another customer. Jughead didn’t care enough to look, but he saw that Kevin’s eyes had widened and then just as quickly averted to the tabletop.

     “Andrews alert,” he whispered.

     Betty briefly rolled her gaze to the ceiling, good-natured. “Everyone had a crush on Archie when they were a kid, I get it, Kev’. But childhood crushes fade. _Mine_ did. Why didn’t yours?”

     “It _did_!” Kevin protested. “But a hot guy walks in here you can’t expect me not to—”

     “You’re ridiculous,” Jughead said under his breath, his normal way of speaking, before getting to his feet to order another coffee at the counter. Archie was in fact here, and at the bar waiting to pick up an order. He noticed Jughead approaching and looked his way, his lips breaking into an easy smile.

     “Archie Andrews. As I live and breathe,” Jughead greeted him. “Congrats on the win last night.”

     “It was nothing,” Archie shrugged.

     “At the brink of destruction only for you and one other guy to pull it back?” Jughead blew air between his lips. “Seemed impressive. You know, for those caught up in that kind of thing.”

     “Still not a fan?” Archie surmised.

     “Can’t paint these roses red.” He motioned to Ronnie’s mother, the on-duty waitress for the morning, and she grabbed the coffee pot to bring his way, along with Archie’s breakfast. Having an in at Pop’s was the best; for Jughead and co., it meant a ten-percent discount on their entire order, every Saturday. Blessed. “Maybe one day. You never know. Thanks, Mrs. L.” He looked back to Archie. He really was too handsome for his own good. “See you.”

     “Yeah. Hey, Jughead—I’m actually having a party next weekend at the river. End of school kind of thing…” Archie lifted his thick eyebrows. “You should come. You and your friends.”

     “Parties aren’t really—”

     “We will be there.” Jughead didn’t have to glance over to see that Kevin had appeared at his right shoulder, a winning and vaguely frightening smile plastered to his face. “For sure.”

     “Great.” Archie nodded, smiling in soft amusement. “See you all next Saturday.”

     “Fantastic.” Kevin grabbed Jughead by the wrist and pulled him back to their table; Jughead yanked his hand away with a frown.

     “What the fuck, Kevin?” he demanded. “A party with the _in-crowd_? Seriously? Can you be any more cliché?”

     “Whoa, there, Chandler Bing. It’s a _party_ ,” Veronica said, like Jughead were lost to the concept. He basically was. “Sure to have good music, good booze, and good times. We are definitely going. Right, Bets?”

     Betty, though she appeared to be somewhat unnerved by the thought of attending a party hosted by Archie Andrews, nodded. “Sure. Why not?”

     Jughead glowered for the rest of breakfast, his friends’ idle bantering no release from his irksome thoughts. Nothing good ever came from these things. If he really couldn’t get out of it, he’d most likely spend the night sat miserable on his own.

     A regular Saturday evening for Jughead Jones.

* * *

 

     His week went by relatively quickly, Archie’s party looming closer on the horizon that Friday night. Jug was sleeping at Betty’s for the night, and the next would be spent at Ronnie’s after the party. They’d thought about going to Kevin’s, but considering his father was the head sheriff of their small town, Jughead had for the group given that option a hard pass. And he himself lived at the Twilight drive-in, so that was definitely not a slumber-party hot-spot.

     Betty was trying to find an outfit to wear, and currently modeled in front of her mirror in a green long-sleeve turtleneck tucked beneath a flowy blue skirt. She looked beautiful, as usual, but was pouting into the mirror as though she were unsure.

     “As much as I adore fashion shows,” Jughead said, “this can’t be over soon enough. Bets, you look great in anything; just wear that.”

     “I don’t know, Juggie…”

     Jughead pulled at the curling piece of hair that always fell into his eyes. “You have no one to impress at that party; you’re in a relationship, not trying to get one.”

      “You’re right,” Betty said, nodding in an attempt to convince herself of this as well. “You’re right. V loves this top anyway. I’ll be back.” Sure, Jughead was allowed to sleep in Betty’s bedroom, but changing was a whole different story for her parents. They’d become ultra-protective after Betty’s sister, Polly, had fallen in love with Jason Blossom and run out of town. Jug wasn’t sure how that translated at all to him and his zero-percent interest in Betty, but it did. He found it funny how parents refused to believe that a guy and a girl could be honest-to-God _friends_ and nothing more, as if being left alone would all of a sudden render them unable to ignore their basic, primal instinct to fuck because one had a dick and the other a vagina. He loved logic.

     Betty returned in her purple and pink flannel pajamas, cozy and soft. Jughead didn’t even live with his parents anymore, and had years back (specifically at age 14) moved into the drive-in. He slept and worked there, earning four dollars an hour and basically just being immensely grateful that it was enough to survive on. He had all his savings stashed here in Betty’s room, as there wasn’t anyone he trusted more in the world than his best friend.

     “Any idea what you’re wearing?” she asked, falling onto her bed.

     “None.” Jughead gave her a look. “Bets, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t be going. Seeing the annoying mouth-breathers I deal with every day in school, _outside_ of school? No. So you can understand how choosing the cutest outfit isn’t high on my list of to-dos.”

     “So you’ll be wearing exactly what you always wear. Jeans, beanie, black t-shirt.”

     “She’s learning!” Betty smiled a little and lifted her arm in a signal for Jughead to get off the floor and come to her. He did, leaning into her shoulder with his head. For a long time, Betty honestly had been one of the only people in the entire world Jughead could confide and believe in. She was the older sibling he hadn’t gotten through his shitty parents.

     “I’m glad you’re coming, at least,” she said quietly.

     “Yeah. That’s why I am.”

     She gently patted the side of his head with the hand she’d had pressed to his arm, then said, “Go get your P.J.s on.”

     “Yes, Mom.” Jug got up and grabbed the sweatpants and t-shirt he used for pajamas. “And just so you know, I’m not expecting to have a good time.”

     Betty nodded, grinning. “Oh, I know. That’s why I’ll make sure you do.”

* * *

 

     Veronica showed up in zebra-striped pants and a sleeveless red turtleneck; as usual, looking more than ready for a night out in the Big Apple and far too good for dingy Riverdale—which, when compared to NYC, was more like a Small Grape.

     Ronnie smiled broadly at Betty, squeezing her girlfriend’s hand and whispering into her ear how beautiful she looked. Betty’s creamy cheeks tinted strawberry and were the perfect complement to Veronica’s top. They had all met at Betty’s to walk together to Sweetwater, and when they arrived they saw that the party was already in fairly full-swing.

     “Fashionably late,” Ronnie announced. “Not too bad.”

     “Or everyone else was early,” suggested Betty.

     “Or we don’t have to overthink pointless details,” Jughead chipped in, slapping a hand to Kevin’s back (sending the unsuspecting Kevin staggering forward just a tad) and walking off to find the beer he was certain had to be around somewhere.

     He recognized a lot of the people surrounding him as those he’d grown up subjected to in elementary, middle, and now high school. They were all like weird, estranged siblings or third-cousins in a dysfunctional family that Jughead couldn’t wait to escape from. Just like his first.

     “Who invited the writer?” Jughead heard Reggie Mantle question aloud. His name suggested his idiocy: what does one decorate a fireplace mantle with? Useless shit. He was a thug jock, one of the many reasons Jughead avoided the sporty groups. Reggie, along with his friends, liked to prod at Jug whenever given the chance. Frankly, it was getting old, and Jug was about to say so when Archie Andrews himself appeared at Reggie’s side.

     “I did,” he said. “I invited him.” He lifted a hand Jughead’s way in hello. Jughead did the same, after a hesitation. He really hadn’t expected Archie to—defend him? “It’s a party, Reg’. Don’t start something, alright?” Reggie held up his hands in surrender, a headshake his last response before heading back for his friends. Archie looked to Jughead. “I’m surprised you showed.”

     “Are you as aware of my reputation as everyone else here, then?”

     “What?” said Archie, amused. “That you prefer solitude to a party? Yeah. Most of the school knows. It’s not too big.”

     “Yeah. Everybody knows everybody else in this freaking town.”

     “You didn’t know me,” Archie pointed out.

     “Hey, sure I did. Just I couldn’t remember your name for a second there; I’m not too good under pressure.” Jughead grinned at the blatant lie and, recognizing it as such, Archie smiled as well. “Anyway, my friends are happy to be included in your soiree, so it’s not too bad.”

     “I’m glad they could make it.” A teammate yelled for Archie and he glanced his way, then back to Jughead with a regretful expression. “That’s me. Hey, feel free to get a drink; they’re by the fire.” Jughead nodded and not a second later Archie had gone. After snagging beers from the cooler, he wandered over to where he saw his friends were hanging about to hand them each a bottle.

     He would rather be at the drive-in, no question. But this wasn’t the worst second option either. “This isn’t as shit as I thought it would be,” Jughead admitted aloud, causing them all to just about faint.

     Smiling widely, Ronnie said, “Jughead Jones, resident badass and Muckraker of Riverdale confessed to having a good time?”

     “I never said that! Man, you guys are the worst.” He rolled his eyes and took a swig of his beer. “I’ll be around.” He dropped his arm and moved around his peers to get to the water some distance away from them all. Being around so many people always wore him out; his patience for others was like a battery that needed attentive recharging. He was waiting for the day when the battery, scrappy after years of maltreatment and overuse, wouldn’t be able to take any more.

     He settled down onto the area of the rocks where the tide was less likely to get at him and snuggled his bottle into a little hole within them, upright. Arms crossed over his drawn-in knees, he looked out at the small body of water that glistened beneath the moon’s reflection. Jughead couldn’t count the number of times he’d written about the moon, or the sky, the stars. Words, poetry, music, they were his way into space. He thought again of the graffiti: _what it is to be quiet, and yet still breathing._

     “So,” he heard beside him. “You lasted a good couple minutes.”

     “I know, Bets. I’m a failure.”

     “I can’t blame you; it’s not like I didn’t know you aren’t a fan of… well, anyone here besides me, Veronica, and Kevin.” Betty smiled, easy-going, and moved her gaze in the direction Jughead’s was fixated on. All she could make out was the water, and even having known Jughead all these years, she couldn’t imagine what he could be seeing that she herself couldn’t. “If you really don’t want to be here, Juggie, you can leave.”

     Jughead looked at her. “Isn’t it strange?”

     “What?”

     “My wanting to leave at all.” Jughead shook his head. “I’m a high school student, all of 17, and yet I’d rather be by myself. Isn’t that weird?”

     “No. It’s just who you are. Who you’ve always been.” Betty patted his hand. “We love you no matter what you do, if that means anything. Not like we think you don’t want to be with us, specifically.”

     “That isn’t it!” Jughead was quick to agree. “You’re my family. It’s… Explaining it is…”

     “I know.” Betty stood up. “Come back whenever. If you don’t want to, go on to Ronnie’s. I can go with you, if you want me to.”

     “No, Bets; enjoy yourself. Really. I’m alright.”

     “Okay.” She poked the top of his beanie once, not too hard, and then walked back to the party. Jughead sighed and pulled the hat off his head, scrubbing a hand through the gentle ringlets there and then over his mouth. His fingers tangled once more in his hair as his eyes fell closed, and he wasn’t sure how much time had drifted by before another voice sounded.

     “I can see parties really aren’t your thing,” said Archie. “Sort of thought you’d been kidding.”

     Jughead glanced his way and chuckled quietly, fiddling with the beanie in his hands. “Yeah. No. I wasn’t. I don’t make many jokes aside from those tripping toward the sardonic; it’s my way of relating to the world. You’ll be able to tell the difference, eventually.”

     Archie was surprised at that, Jughead’s suggestion that there would be an _eventually_ in their recent and odd affiliation. Hell, Jughead hadn’t even realised what he was saying before he’d gone and said it.

     “I’m a quick study,” Archie said, nodding. “Learned the guitar in just a couple weeks.”

     “You play?” Jughead’s interest was piqued. “I’m more of a drums man, myself.”

     “For real?” Archie was smiling, and Jughead felt that strange tingling in his lips that meant he was too. “That’s so cool. I write a bit of music too; though I haven’t actually _written_ it down.” He tapped his temple. “All in here.”

     “Yeah; I don’t write it. Just memorize by ear. Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins.”

     “Isn’t it so much easier than reading scales?” Archie laughed. “I can’t see how anyone would rather do it the hard way.”

     “Well, everyone’s brain works differently.”

     Archie nodded in agreement, and this subject prompted him to say, “You know, if you aren’t feeling the party you can just head out. I wouldn’t take it personally.”

     Jughead sipped his beer. “To be honest with you, I’m not sure I’d care either way…” Archie snorted and Jug grinned. “…but leaving feels sort of like I’m wimping out. I came for my best friend, really.”

     “Yeah. I mean, honestly, this party was Chuck Clayton’s idea.” Archie’s fingers went to his hair. “I’ve had so much work hanging over me these past weeks, with football and my music and—Jesus, college—I haven’t had much time for anything else.”

     “Plate seems pretty full up, Andrews. Might want to ditch some of the excess.”

     “Can’t. Too far in now to turn around.” The poetic simplicity of the sentence struck each boy at the same moment, and they both made a mental note to scratch it down later. “Anyway. I can’t let my chronic exhaustion keep me down, right?” Jughead grinned at that.

     “’Course not,” he said. “I’m just pushing on through ’til December of next year, when I turn 18 and can get the hell out of this fucking town.”

     “Road trip?”

     “Maybe a couple cities, Chicago or New York.” Jughead rolled his eyes to the dark sky above. “Anywhere.”

     “I’ve always wanted to go to San Francisco,” Archie said. His voice was light, dreaming.

     “And that’s only in the States.” Jughead finished off his beer. “I couldn’t imagine being stuck here my whole life. No way.”

     “I’m sort of afraid I’ve got no place else to escape to,” Archie admitted. “You know?”

     Jughead shook his head, rubbing his eyes. “I can’t afford to think like that. I’d probably kill myself.” Immediately, Jughead regretted his words. The thought had crossed his mind more than once when he was younger, the couple pathetic slashes on his ankles nothing to be proud of. If he’d said that in front of Betty, she would choke. Archie didn’t know him, though, and so didn’t understand the possibility of any deeper implication.

     “I hear that. I hate to think I’ll end up like everyone else in Riverdale. I love my father, but taking over his business? No way.”

     “Not your thing? Yeah, I get it. My dad’s not exactly what you’d call a top-notch role model. Going into his line of work…” Jughead breathed out slowly, the image of his father, the Southside Serpent, burned behind his eyes. He could still feel the bruises on his back like it had been yesterday that he’d received them. “It’s why I moved out.”

     “You live on your own?”

     “You could say that.” Jughead allowed a small smile onto his face. “It’ll make it easier when I go.”

     “Jesus, I wish I could go with you,” Archie said, before he knew what he was saying. He hadn’t meant to insinuate anything, but the thought of getting out of this town with what little he owned in the trunk and Archie Andrews at his side just about made Jughead see stars, and not the ones in the sky.

     “As long as you help pay for gas,” he joked.

     “I could, you know.”

     “You could what?”

     “I could pay for gas. Over the last summer I worked with my dad and got a bit of pay out of it.” Archie released some air that resembled a laugh. “I must be drunker than I thought.”

     “Seem pretty sober to me,” Jughead said.

     Archie turned to look at Jughead, his mouth slightly open, eyes bright. “I know.”

     Jughead wasn’t sure if he was seeing things, but he could almost swear that Archie’s slippery focus had dropped to his mouth. What the fuck? “You know what?” Jug said. “You’re right. Leaving sounds pretty good.”

     Archie jumped up after him, his head shaking like he’d been woken from a daze. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Right. See you Monday.”

     Walking backwards for a brief moment, Jughead observed the other boy’s deer-in-headlights eyes and startled stance. “You might,” he replied. Then he turned fully around and made for Betty, Kevin, and Ronnie. He motioned to them from afar that he was leaving and began the trek to the drive-in, no longer in the mood to spend the night with his friends.

     Jughead lay on his cot, arms crossed behind his head and focus on the ceiling. He was at a loss, and wanted only to rid his brain of orange-red hair and wide smiles.

* * *

 

     “ _You’re a jack-ass,” Jughead spits at his father. “Mom’s left and taken my sister with her, I chose to stick by your side after everything you’ve done—”_

_The words were like raindrops on FP’s skin, slipping off with no harm to him or his drunken slurs. How many times did Jughead have to go through this same thing? How many times would he have to yell at his father as though he were the child?_

_“Your mother’s the bitch who betrayed us and somehow I’m the bad guy?” FP snorted and Jughead winced._

_‘Of course you’re the bad guy, Dad,’ he wants to say. ‘Mom didn’t leave these scars on my arms, or the purple and yellow spots on my back, did she?’_

_“I can’t be here anymore,” Jughead tells him. “I have—I have to get out.”_

_“Juggie, what’re you talkin’ about?”_

_“Don’t call me that.” Nearly running, Jughead moves past his father for the tiny room considered his in this shitty trailer, the only home he’s ever known. He shuts the door and grabs a green duffel from beneath the bed, stuffing as much as he can fit inside. The stash of bills he’d saved up goes into the front pocket, and he’s gone._

* * *

 

     Moanday, Tearsday, Wailsday… Catching a pattern? It slugged by, granted, what with all the testing, but by it went. Jughead became aware in an uncomfortably keen sort of way that he had no classes with Archie Andrews. Aside from a walk to the bathroom on Thursday, he didn’t pass him in the halls, and Jug could almost pretend that Archie had been a figment.

     And then junior year was done with. Exams completed, recommendations acquired. Jughead was free to do whatever he wanted for the summer, which he already knew would be time spent at the drive-in for cash and at Betty’s, Kevin’s, or Ronnie’s for what little fun Riverdale could provide.

     It was all set, and as much as it was reassuring, it also sucked ass. Maybe he didn’t want the same old same old. Maybe he wanted something else.

     The sixth afternoon into June, a Friday, Jughead was pumping air into the wheels of his bike. It was his only means of transport, his prized possession despite being years-old and rusted. It was his, and only his. That, and his bulky headphones. They currently blasted Radiohead’s _Airbag_ into his ears beneath the beating sun, and for once Jughead was dressed down in a loose white tank-top and jeans.

     When he glanced up to swipe the hair back from his forehead, he took note of a greenish truck pulling onto the property. Jug squinted against the sun, trying to see the driver, but to no avail. The door opened and out he hopped, buff and bright in a blue t-shirt. He was taller than Jughead, no surprise there, and whenever he came close enough Jug was forced to look up at him.

     “Jughead,” Archie called out as he walked over. Jughead adjusted the brake on the bicycle to keep it standing as he wiped his greasy hands on his tank-top.

     “Archie. What’re you doing on this side of the tracks?” he asked, half kidding. He realised his headphones were still over his ears and so pulled them off, settling them around his neck.

     “I have a proposition,” he told Jughead, one eye squinted against the rays of the sun.

     “Do you now? What sort did you have in mind?”

     “Road-trip. You in?”

     Jughead snorted, turning away from Archie. “That was funny at Sweetwater. Here, not so much.”

     “I’m not joking,” Archie told him. “I’m serious. Let’s leave Riverdale for the summer.”

     “You don’t even know me,” Jughead said. “I don’t know _you_. Up until this moment I almost convinced myself you don’t really exist. What the hell makes you think I’d agree to that?”

     Archie shrugged. “Worth a shot. I’m tired, Jug. This town is a drain. Another summer here with my dad and his company sounds like hell. And what do you do over the summer?”

     “Work. Make the money I need to make.” Jughead shook his head, a mirthless smile on his lips. “Not all of us can get away with playing football and throwing parties, you know.”

     Archie looked a little surprised by Jug’s snipe, but he hardly showed it. “I almost didn’t come here today,” he said.

     Jughead snorted. “Yeah? So why did you?”

     Archie shrugged his broad shoulders. “Woke up. Had breakfast. Thought of that stupid beanie you’re always wearing.” Jughead stared at him. “Figured I’d give it a try.”

     “Give _what_ a try?” Jughead rubbed his eyes. “Jesus. You’re pretty cryptic for a jock.” He lifted his gaze to see that Archie had somehow come about ten steps closer in the span of a few seconds. What was he; some kind of fucking ninja? Jughead nearly jumped out of his skin. He could faintly hear _Let Down_ below his ears.

     “I think you’re interesting,” Archie told Jug. “Road-tripping it seems extreme, I’ll give you that, but I can safely say you’re the only person I’ve met in this town that I’ve actually wanted to leave it with.”

     Jughead searched Archie’s solemn face for a sign of the impending punchline. “What is this? The _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_? I’m not feeling like Huck just now.”

     “Come on,” Archie maintained. “Let’s do it.”

     “I don’t have enough money to abandon my life here.”

     “I do. I’ve done work for my neighbors since I was a kid, and working with my dad left me enough to travel if I’m sparing.” Archie grinned that stupid grin. “What d’you say?”

     “What _can_ I say? You’re a nut-job. Bat-shit insane.” Archie didn’t stop smiling. “Fuck. Sure. We’ll do this. Guess I’m crazy too.”

* * *

 

     “You’re doing _what_?” Betty blurted, her eyes pulled wide.

     “Well, after that enlightened and expected response I may as well call it all off. Sorry to worry you, gang.” Jughead shook his head and crossed his arms. “Don’t you think I know how mental this is?”

     Kevin made a sound that very nearly resembled the word _Understatement_. “No, Jug, not just mental. A road trip with Archie Andrews?”

     “I think it could be cool,” Veronica tried, wincing when Betty turned on her with a glare. “What?”

     “Jughead, you don’t know him. And you want your savings to leave Riverdale with him? To–to what?” Betty spluttered. “Sleep in a car every night? What happened to your 18th birthday? What happened to _waiting_?”

     Jughead sighed. “Caspar down at the drive-in agreed to run it for a few weeks and even loaned me a couple containers of gas to bring for Archie’s truck. He’s got his own and combined we won’t have to pay for gas all that often. Motels exist and should be alright, for the most part. And maybe I’m sick of _waiting_ in this town.”

     “Jug.”

     “Bets.”

     “What if something goes wrong?”

     “Like what? We’re two fairly capable guys, unless I’m mistaken,” Jughead said. He pushed to his feet from where he’d been leaning against Betty’s desk. “And Archie’s a good… He isn’t a douche, shockingly. It’ll be fine. It could even be pretty great.”

     “And if you get sick of him on the road?” Veronica asked.

     “As if,” Kevin said. Betty whacked his arm.

     “I’ll shove him out of the truck and speed up,” Jug vowed with a grin. Betty smiled, but it was a little sad as she dragged him into a tight hug.

     “God. I love you, Juggie. Stop at payphones once a day at least, okay?”

     “Sure, sure.” He accepted an embrace from Ronnie and a lopsided smile from Kevin, then stuck his hands into his pockets. “Like I said, we leave bright and early. Should be back around August, unless we seriously fuck up money wise…” He took a step backwards, toward the door. “See you guys later.”

     “Don’t fall for him, Jughead,” Kevin warned, grinning. “He’ll pull you in before you even realise it.”

     “I’ll try my best.”

     Jughead spent the night creating tapes for the ride, all his favorite songs to educate Archie in the way of the classics and lesser-known pieces. He had few clothes, and managed to pack them all next to the extra stuff (toothbrush, underwear) in his hiking backpack.

     He was actually nervous when Archie appeared in that greenish truck the following morning. He was excited too, though, and it outweighed the anxiety. Rare, for him.

     Archie smiled at Jughead when he stepped up into the passenger’s side, duffel thrown into the back. “Brought bags full of snacks for the road,” he informed Jug.

     “Don’t have much but I did too.”

     “You ready?”

     “Fuck, yeah.”


	3. Whoever Beholds Me Shall Like Me

     Not excited about it by any means, Jughead was lucky that he wasn’t a naturally late-sleeper or else his forgetful mind, having not reminded him to set an alarm, would’ve been late for the first day of senior year. He swung his feet off the cot onto the floor, yanking the hair away from his face and glaring at the dingy hardwood. Here we go.

     Betty waited for him right in front of the school, Kevin and Ronnie by her side, and the sight was so familiar that Jughead’s frown was momentarily tickled into a smile. But only momentarily.

     “You ready?” Veronica asked, her red lips pulled up gently.

     “When the hell’ve I ever been ready for anything in my life?” Jug replied, and walked past them into the building. The three exchanged quick glances before following after.

     It was evident from AP Psych first period that this new year would be shit. A class of pricks, and the rotting cherry atop the shit sundae was Archie sat by the radiator across the room from the doorway. Jughead allowed his eyes to glaze over the red-head just once before ignoring him completely and sitting as far from his desk as possible. Maybe taking this course would help Jug understand Archibald Andrews, or maybe how human beings that shared blood could be so fucking horrible to one another. Maybe he didn’t give a fuck anyway.

* * *

 

_“Our first night on the road,” Archie announces. He’s been driving for a few hours and his smile, if it’s possible, is wider than ever when he glances Jug’s way. The stars are high in the dark sky, and Muse plays softly over the speakers. Muse should never be tuned to anything other than blaring but, for Archie’s sake, Jughead is letting that slide. For now._

_“It is indeed.” He shakes his head and Archie raises his eyebrows._

_“What?”_

_“I just can’t believe this is my life. I’m driving down a fucking highway in a green truck with a star football player I met two weeks ago. You can’t say that this is normal, or that it’s weird for me to be a little bit in awe.”_

_“Of course I can’t. But it’s only weird if you let it be,” Archie points out. “And what’s normal, anyway?”_

_Jughead looks at him. “Huh?”_

_“Am I? Are you? To my dad normal is wakin’ up at five on a weekend to get started on his next construction sight, to me it’s music, to you… it’s that freaking hat on your head.” Jughead laughs, rolling his eyes. “All I’m saying is, normal’s whatever we want it to be. This here could be normal.”_

_“Maybe there’s more under that jock facade after all,” Jughead says, turning his attention to the world outside they sped past._

_Archie drums his fingers against the wheel. “Maybe there is.”_

_They decide that to celebrate their ‘first night on the road’ they would splurge on a motel room instead of accepting their fate of sleeping in the truck. They lug their couple bags inside and ask for a room; both ignore the looks they receive from the person behind the desk. It’s nearly one in the morning, and they’re too tired to care what some stranger thinks._

_“I’m beat,” Archie says, dropping his duffel onto the floor and himself onto the bed closest to the door._

_“Yeah, you drove the whole day,” Jughead reminds him. “How about I take a turn tomorrow?”_

_“If you insist.” Archie yawns and pulls the blue t-shirt over his head; Jughead catches a glimpse of the taut muscle there and, abrupt, turns to go into the bathroom. He braces his hands against the counter, surprised at himself. What the fuck?_

_“You going to sleep?” Archie calls to him._

_“Yeah.” Jughead breathes out and goes back to the main room. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”_

_“Guess you will.” Archie grins and rolls over. Jughead turns out the light and, grateful that they’d gotten a room with two beds, goes to the one near the window._

_“’Night, Arch’,” he says aloud, experimentally._

_“’Night, Jug.”_

* * *

 

     Jughead made it through the day, thank God, and got home with plenty of time to spare before he would have to head to Betty’s for dinner. He insisted on living at the drive-in, and Betty had only allowed him to do so thus far because he agreed to have a real supper at her house a couple times a week.

     His camera sat on the desk with every intention of taunting him. It contained so many pictures, as of yet undeveloped—and stubborn memories, as of yet to be erased. It was unfortunate for Jughead that he knew better than most that memories stuck around whether you wanted them to or not. Why was it always that humans became so attached to the bad ones, unable to do anything but watch them fester, but the good memories faded away until, with no one to account for their existence, it was just as if they had never been at all?

     He shrugged away the thoughts that he didn’t want to deal with and, stretched atop his creaky mattress, began his reading for English.

     He didn’t account for tiredness, and awoke at past four in the realisation that he’d fallen asleep with the book on his chest. Jughead brushed his teeth in haste and only when he was stood on Betty’s front porch did he allow himself to adjust the hat on his head and breathe. She smiled when she opened the door, ushering him inside.

     “Hey, Juggie,” she said. “Chicken pot pie tonight; I know how much you like it.” She saw his eyes, still raw from sleep, and she put a hand to his arm. “You okay?”

     He tossed her a look and moved past for the kitchen. “Of course I am,” he lied. He hadn’t been anything more than _living_ since he was little, and even that has generally felt like a raw deal.

     But even so, Jughead sat through the meal and as he always did thanked Mrs. Cooper for it. She and her husband were separated with a divorce pending, Polly was in Kansas, and Jughead suspected that having another person in the house to feed—even one so… alternative as him—made Alice feel slightly better about everything.

     “You know you can talk to me,” Betty said once she and Jughead were safely behind her bedroom door.

     “What else are best friends for?” Jughead responded easily. He’d shrugged his jacket off as they’d walked up to the second floor, but as they always did Betty’s eyes gravitated to the years-old marks, courtesy of F.P., on his arms. He wanted to cover them up, but knew it was no use.

     “Juggie,” Betty said. He could see that she was thinking about the times he’d hurt himself; even as wimpy as it’d been, it still made her worry for him and he hated that. He didn’t want one of the only people he relied on in this fucked-up world to take his pain as her own burden.

     “Bets, I’m okay, I swear,” he told her. “It was a road-trip, and I should’ve known better than to go at all. I deal with it, but you don’t have to.”

     “But I want to know what’s been eating at you,” Betty said, her pretty eyes pleading.

     Jughead sighed and pushed off her mattress. “The only thing _I_ want to be eating is ice cream,” he said, forcing lightness into his voice. “Got any left?”

* * *

 

     He ended up staying the night. He tried to sleep, as their talking tapered off around ten, but his body wasn’t having it and he couldn’t make his brain stop. Betty was sure he had fallen asleep, which Jughead realised when she answered the phone around half-past eleven. It had to be Ronnie.

     “I don’t know,” Betty said. “I can tell something’s wrong but he still won’t say anything about it. Do you think it’s really bad?”

     Jughead squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself not to stand up right then and leave. He didn’t want their concern; it was the very reason he hadn’t told them in the first place. Why couldn’t they leave well enough alone? Was he really all that different after the trip?

* * *

 

      _Jughead found most diners to be the same. Not that he’d necessarily traveled so much that, after diner number 49, this conclusion had come to nestle into his mind, but movies and shows made them out to be exactly what one should expect from a hometown diner off the main road: a restaurant that was open 24 hours and welcomed anyone who happened to come by. It was Pop’s for Riverdale, and for Haverhill it was Mr. D’s. As usual, he orders black coffee and hash browns, over which he will always be expected to pour syrup. Even so many years later this still earns a cringe from his friends, and now Archie, across the booth, watches him with what seems to be fond amusement in his eyes._

_“No ketchup?”_

_“Ketchup and syrup don’t go together very well,” Jug quips. Archie snorts and shrugs, cutting his pancakes into even pieces. “OCD?” Jughead observes._

_Archie glances up to Jug then back to his plate. “Can a guy eat in peace?”_

_“Hey, man, you’re the one who came after my syrup.”_

_Archie shakes his head with a small smile. “Let’s agree to end it here, yeah?”_

_Jughead looks out the window, mug in hand, and appreciates that the view, at least, is different from the view back home. Same cars parked outside, mostly the same patrons coming and going. He had to say that while people tended to blur in his eyes, if he put on his Writer’s Glasses he could pick them apart as easily as Sherlock Holmes, and make a better story too._

_He can feel Archie’s soft gaze on him but he refuses to look his way. He quietly taps his heel against the linoleum, unsure where to let his eyes drop. He settles on the creamers in the basket and decides to stack them. He and Jellybean had always contested to see who could find the most and stack them the highest. A smile tugs at his lips as he remembers this, a creamer rolling gently in his palm._

_“Special connection to the creamer?” Archie asks._

_“You don’t know everything about me,” Jughead manages to reply cheekily. Archie stares at him and Jughead, lost, does the same._

_“I’m waiting,” Archie clarifies._

_“For what, pray tell?” Jug asks sarcastically._

_“The ‘everything’ I apparently don’t know about you.”_

_Jughead drops his head and stabs at his potatoes. “Forget it, man.”_

_“What?” insists Archie. “I’m here, aren’t I?”_

_“And what, that should all of a sudden make me want to open up to you?” Jughead demands, too harsh. Archie looks surprised at his sharp tone, and Jughead very nearly opens his mouth to tell him he’s sorry._

_“That’s… not what I meant,” Archie says._

_Jughead doesn’t know what to say next. Maybe all diners aren’t the same._

_“Check, please.”_

* * *

 

     Not that he didn’t prefer lunch over class, but generally the only food Jughead could scrounge up was a bag of chips and those were gone fairly quickly into the period. He hadn’t been scheduled into the same lunch period as his friends, because why would he have been, and was curled against the wall of the library’s window with Lays to his left and a book of E. E. Cummings’ poetry pressed to his thighs. He had certain lines underlined, ones that remind him of Betty or his mother, or Bean. He underlined an entire stanza, and only after he had done so did he comprehend what it said.

_(i do not know what it is about you that closes_

_and opens;only something in me understands_

_the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)_

     He closed the book.

* * *

 

**Killer Kevin Keller**

_We should do something tonight_

**Ronnie Rotten**

_It’s a Wednesday babe_

**Betty Lou Who**

_Is that actual Veronica Lodge??_

**Ronnie Rotten**

_Hey OK I don’t always want to go out!_

**Jug**

_Well we’re all aware of Kevin’s obsession with ~Michael~_

**Ronnie Rotten**

_We’re only a couple days into the new year; can’t Kevin control himself until Friday at least? :p_

**Killer Kevin Keller**

_Fuck u guys I barely see him_

**Jug**

_Don’t be upset. We understand he’s a dreamboat_

**Betty Lou Who**

_V told me this morning that Reggie’s having a party on Saturday I think_

**Ronnie Rotten**

_Reggie isn’t our biggest fan who’d get us in??_

**Killer Kevin Keller**

_How about the guy who went on a road trip with Reggie’s teammate?_

**Killer Kevin Keller**

_I mean u Jughead_

**Betty Lou Who**

_Juggie?_

**Ronnie Rotten**

_JUGHEAD?_

**Ronnie Rotten**

_Radio silence. I think he left.._

**Killer Kevin Keller**

_He can dish it out but he can’t take it? OK.._

**Betty Lou Who**

_Kevin!_

**Ronnie Rotten**

_Kevin!_

**Killer Kevin Keller**

_Whoops?_

* * *

 

     He said no. They had tried to persuade him to go and this time, he hadn’t let himself be convinced. Jughead couldn’t be bothered anymore, no way, not when he’d been sure that their last social event would end terribly. It would be no different than the last party, where he’d sat by the lake and—And look how that turned out, him going on a fucking _drive_ with a football player. Like he said: terrible.

     But his alarm clock beeped at him that it was past ten, and he was sitting by himself at the drive-in. Even the ridiculousness of _Pygmalion_ couldn’t make him laugh, and it wasn’t as though he enjoyed being miserable. He just slipped into a funk, sometimes, and couldn’t find his way out again. He was lonely, but didn’t want to be around anyone. He wanted his friends to wonder what he was doing, but he didn’t want them to worry.

     Jughead was a paradox.

     He rested on his cot for a solid 40 seconds, hands behind his head, and then he stood up, grabbed his jacket, and walked out the door for his bike. Little more than five minutes later he was sat down at Pop’s counter and frowning into a cup of coffee. A waitress who was a friend of Hermione’s nudged his arm as she passed, giving him a kind smile, and Jughead tried to return it. It wasn’t easy. He knew he looked unhappy, considering he wasn’t exactly _happy_ in the first place, but he was afraid his face would forget how to smile after days (years) of relentless brooding. Betty sometimes teased that he was more intense than Edward Cullen—which, honestly, is the worst insult she could’ve come up with.

     The bell above the door chimed out, and Jughead took a swig of his coffee as though it were a stiff drink. He didn’t drink all that much, though, the fear of resembling his father in even the slightest horrific enough for him to mostly avoid it. He thought of the party last summer, the beer by the lake. Maybe that’s what had made him see stars in brown eyes.

     “A bit late for you to be out, isn’t it?”

     The voice was almost hesitant, as though unsure whether to even breathe in Jughead’s direction, and Jug couldn’t say he was wrong to be tentative.

     “Sleep evades me,” Jughead responded. He refused to look Archie’s way. “Nothing new.”

     “Almost thought you’d show at Reggie’s.”

     Jughead made a noise into his coffee mug, shelling a few dollars onto the bar-top. “Then you really don’t know me at all, do you?” He walked past Archie and didn’t let himself pause for even a second as he did.

* * *

 

     _Another motel night. Upside. Downside: saving money meant skimping on the ‘little things,’ which in this particular case meant getting a room with one bed instead of two. Jughead was ready to suggest he sleep in the truck, just to avoid this situation, but Archie wasn’t acting strangely about it so why should he?_

_He brushes his teeth and doesn’t look at himself in the mirror before going out to sleep. He really is tired and is more than ready to be unconscious. Isn’t he always._

_Archie is flipping through the channels when he walks in. He’s studying the channel numbers on the sheet every few seconds just to be sure he knows what he’s doing, and his eyebrows are drawn together in the cutest way. Jughead wants to hurl himself out the window, but since they’re on the first floor it wouldn’t do much damage anyhow. He tosses the idea aside and makes for the mattress. There’s a couple weeks left to this road-trip and Jughead’s sure the thing he’ll miss most is, however intermittently, getting the chance to have a full-sized mattress. You know, instead of the rickety cot back in Riverdale’s drive-in shack. He loves that place, really he does, but he can almost feel like he’s living the good life when he has what most people consider to be a legitimate bed._

_He glances over at Archie, who does the same. “Did you want to pick something?” he asks._

_“I’m good,” Jughead says. “Don’t you want to, I don’t know… sleep?”_

_Archie laughs and, with an eyeroll, switches off the lamp on his bedside table. “I can see you do. I’m just waiting to see the weather for tomorrow. D’you mind…?”_

_Jughead releases a dramatic sigh, back flat against the mattress. “I guess not.”_

_A couple minutes later, Jughead is sure that he should be asleep. The TV is quiet enough, but he suspects that it’s being so near to Archie which has his mind still going. They usually sit in a truck this close together, but then there’s a middle section and Radiohead separating them. Here, there’s nothing but sheets and the quiet rhythm of evening news. Which is really nothing at all._

_“I can’t believe we’re here,” Jughead whispers, surprised at his own honesty._

_“In a motel?”_

_Jughead’s hands lift as he sarcastically says, “No, dumbass. Planet Earth. What else would I mean? We’re in a motel for a pit-stop on our fucking road-trip. We’re insane.”_

_“I thought we’ve been over this,” Archie says, his right hand that held the remote coming to rest in the space between him and Jughead. “It’s only crazy if you tell yourself it is.”_

_“I’ve never been very positive.”_

_“I have,” Archie says, his grin lopsided and shining even in the dark. “I can be positive enough for both of us.”_

_“What a nerd.”_

_Archie prods his arm, not too rough, and laughs. “What a dick.”_

_“You knew that going into this,” Jughead replies, his words sounding more earnest than he would’ve liked._

_“Yeah. I knew what you thought of yourself pretty clearly.”_

_“Please enlighten me: what do I think of myself?”_

_Archie pushes a hand into his hair, slightly damp from his shower. “You don’t think you’re worth anyone’s time, even though your friends love you a lot.”_

_“Why would I be worth anything?” Jughead asks, eyes on the ceiling. “My dad’s a drunk gang leader; my mom got sick of him, took off with my sister, and left me to pick up the pieces of our ruined family. I’m a fucking charity case.”_

_“You aren’t,” Archie disagrees. Jughead snorts in disagreement and Archie sets a hand to his arm. “Seriously. You’re the guy who knows everything about Led Zeppelin and Radiohead, and swore to kick me out of the truck if I sang too loud because I’m obviously better than you.” He laughs when, despite himself, Jughead smiles. “You aren’t a charity case. You’re a lot of stuff, but not that.”_

_“I’ll take your word for it then?”_

_“If not your own, then yeah,” Archie says. He shakes his head. “Sometimes I think you don’t even trust yourself, Jug. Isn’t that scary? To not have your own back?”_

_Jughead looks over at Archie, who’s propped on his pillow by an elbow, the hand at the end tangled into his red hair. He’d opted to keep a shirt on tonight, and it’s grey and somehow he makes it look too good, as he does with everything else._

_“Do you have my back?” What could’ve been light-hearted sounds way too serious, but Jughead doesn’t look away._

_“Yes,” Archie says immediately, and then, looking at Jughead almost bashfully through his lashes, “Do you want me to?”_

_“I didn’t think so,” Jughead murmurs, truthful. “Kind of surprised myself.”_

_“Me too,” Archie admits. He looks over Jughead’s face, silent, and Jughead doesn’t want to do this anymore. What’s the point? Each day has been a fight with himself over what he wants to do about This, the obese elephant crammed into every space he and Archie occupy, but he’s been fighting his entire life about so many things and can’t something, just this once, be simple?_

_He doubts it, so much so, but he pushes across that two-foot gap anyway to situate his mouth onto Archie’s. Maybe it isn’t the best time to mention that his first and only kiss was with Betty, in the third grade._

_The fear that Archie would implode is erased when he drops his hand against Jughead’s hair. (He should really have Mrs. Lodge give his hair a cut.) They press together, and only after the volume from the television is suddenly at 57 does Jughead realise that they’d been on top of the remote. Archie can’t help the laugh that escapes when Jughead snatches the remote from where it lay between their bodies to turn off the TV._

_Jughead, with lifted brows only a couple inches from Archie’s face, says, “Did you want to keep laughing, or…?”_

_Archie kisses him, deeper even than before, and Jughead can feel the grin melt from Archie’s lips onto his own._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave a comment or tell me if you see a mistake! :) In case you don't know, the titles are lines from the Walt Whitman excerpt from chapter one, and I don't own them.


	4. I Could Stop Here Myself And Do Miracles

     Jughead was flat on Veronica’s bed. He had taken this position when she and Betty had gone to retrieve the cookies and ice cream from Ronnie’s kitchen. Kevin was having a rare night out with his boyfriend Michael, since he was visiting from Lewiston. He attended Bates College as a freshman, and not having Michael in town anymore had really sucked for Kevin. Any chance they got to spend a day together, they took it. Great for Kev, but for Jughead this meant that he was the only boy in a room with two girls. His best friends, yeah, but they were dating and that inescapably led to being a third wheel. He suffered through every time regardless of being aware of that and tonight would be no different. He had no choice, really, since B and V were certain that a night with his friends would do Jughead some evidently much-needed good.

     He didn’t want to say that he was being pathetic, but he was. He had dealt with disappointment and abandonment his entire life—why was what happened with Andrews any different? He hated himself for letting it take over his mind, let it keep him from sleeping, let his eyes dart every time there was a flash of copper that was most times just Cheryl Blossom. Pitiful. Useless. Laughable. Pathetic.

     The girls reentered with ready smiles to interrupt Jughead’s usual stream of insults aimed at himself. “Cookie dough,” Betty announced. “Seeing as we both hate it, Ronnie bought it just for you.” Jughead rolled his eyes as she bumped his arm and handed him the bowl; on top of the ice cream scoops sat two oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies as well. They really did know him far too well.

     “As is our disgraceful habit, we have yet to decide on a movie,” Veronica added. “What’ll it be?”

     Jughead rested his head against the pillow, the girls cozily flanking his sides. “Anything but _Legally Blonde_.”

     “ _Rocky Horror Picture Show_?”

     Betty groaned. “Not again, V.”

     “I’d like to nominate _The Breakfast Club_ ,” Jughead piped in.

     “See, now that’s a rewatch worth its time, _every_ time,” Veronica commended him. “Just be a sec.” She dropped her bowl onto Jughead’s lap and gracefully jumped up to grab the disc from her shelf, on which had to be dozens of assorted films from every genre imaginable.

     Betty rested her head against Jug’s arm, the familiar feeling a comfort to Jughead. “How’re you, Juggie?” she whispered.

     “Peachy-keen.”

     “Jug.”

     “Bets.”

     “ _Movie_ ,” Veronica said purposefully as she settled back onto the mattress.

     They made a point of not speaking during _The Breakfast Club_. It was their way of making up for the fact that they had not been alive in time for its premiere, which Jughead considered to be one of his most extreme failures—his birth. Being born in ’99 instead of, say, ’72, when he could then sneak into the movie 13 years later.

     He’d always hated how Allison and Andy got together. It pissed him off, the idea that some blush and eyeliner were the magic solution to turn a douche like Andy into a prince who would normally never look Allison’s way if not for her undergoing a complete personality-change. She deserved better than him, a guy who would refuse to acknowledge her in the halls on Monday, even if she showed up with a headband and blouse, because the stain of who she ‘had been’ wouldn’t be erased in the eyes of their peers with a new pair of pants, and he knew it. Allison would want to believe otherwise, because hadn’t Andy looked at her like she was something special, kissed her and watched her walk away with wonder?

     It didn’t make a difference. None of them would ever exchange so much as three words to one another come the new week, their unity against Vernon not nearly enough to keep them together. Claire and Bender wouldn’t explore what they could have been, but Bender would have to return home to an abusive father and vacant mother while Claire the cherry returned to her life of popularity. The story was all too familiar.

     It broke Jughead’s heart more than Rose and Jack ever could.

     Betty and Veronica, as always, sang in exaggerated time with Simple Minds and Jughead watched with a grin. Sometimes, such as in moments like this, there was no other place he would rather be than with his goofy friends, conducting their performance. These were the good times, the ones he stored away and tried to remember when the bad crept up his spine.

     They flopped onto the foot of the bed with breathless laughs as the song faded. Jughead sat with his back still against the pillows, more content than he had been in a while. “What a show,” he remarked.

     “It was our honor,” Betty said dramatically.

     “Maybe next time Kev and Michael can come too,” Veronica thought aloud. She was looking up at the ceiling from where she lay on her back, Betty’s head rested comfortably on her stomach.

     “Just what I need, another couple to hang around,” Jughead griped. He was only partially kidding. Michael was nice and everything, had a good sense of humor, treated Kevin perfectly, but Jughead—even with that stuff taken into account—only had so much kindness to go around before his patience for social interaction gave out. The odds of that were inflated considerably when in the vicinity of more than two people.

     Immediately, Jughead took note of how Betty glanced up at Ronnie. “You know, Juggie, if you had someone, we could all go on like a—triple date,” Veronica proposed.

     “Sounds great,” Jughead responded with enthusiasm, “if in any realm of possibility I would ever find that a good idea.” Betty repositioned to sit with her legs crossed and the girls faced Jughead. He felt cornered.

     “Jughead,” Betty said.

     “Oh, come on, you knew I wouldn’t want to do that,” he complained. “Don’t make this a thing.”

     “Juggie, you’ve been alone since we were kids, never dated anyone, and I’ve never mentioned it,” Betty reasoned. “You’ve never dealt with any heartbreak outside of your family—”

     “And what?” he demanded, his voice clipped.

     “And I haven’t seen that in you—heartbreak… Not since… since your mom left with Jellybean. I just… It seems like…” Betty wasn’t sure how to go on.

     “It seems as though ever since you got back from that road-trip with Archie, you’ve been heartbroken,” Ronnie concluded.

     “What’s that supposed to mean? What, Archie Andrews supposedly _broke_ _my_ _heart_?” Jughead shoved himself off the bed, astonished that he hadn’t done so sooner, and his face was a mask of fury. “Thanks for the analysis, ladies, but you don’t know anything.”

     “You won’t _tell_ us anything!” Betty countered.

     “Whose business is it but mine, huh? All there is to say is Andrews is exactly the person I knew he would be—a manipulative, candy-ass, liar jock with nothing better to do than hide behind who he _pretends_ to be,” Jughead spat. His cheeks were flaming in anger, and something else. “I’m better off. And you guys are better off without the details, so drop it.” He stormed from the room, ignoring their protests, and ditched his bike at Ronnie’s. He ran back to the drive-in instead, the cool night-air of Maine freezing against his cheeks as he pushed on down the blacktop.

     Panting, he slammed through the door and collapsed on his cot. It took him a couple seconds to realise that he was shaking, and he employed his blanket as a cocoon to keep himself warm. He didn’t stop shaking, though, until he finally fell into a dreamless unrest over an hour later.

* * *

 

     It didn’t seem possible that Jughead was already over two weeks into his senior year. This wasn’t what he’d imagined. More than anything, it all felt like a vividly realistic nightmare world that, no matter how God damn hard he tried, he couldn’t find the road that led him out. His embarrassment over his outburst on Friday had left him isolated, as he refused to so much as look at either Veronica or Betty. Kevin didn’t have any idea what was happening, of course, since all the girls could give him was their theory on Jughead’s recent mood, and Jughead was certain that they needed to get jobs and leave him alone.

     It was a relief that Psych didn’t have many projects that required a partner because he had an inkling that, if it did, Andrews (who had an incessant, driving need to be liked by everyone he came across) would try to rope Jug into working with him. The last thing Jughead needed was more time with that jock. He thought of the night they met, at that cursed football game, and for the millionth time Jug wished that he’d just stayed home.

     Or he wished that Archie hadn’t needed an apple juice and had never walked over with his stupid smile to that vending machine where Jughead had already been stood. His shitty, _un_ complicated life had become shitty and complicated, but he had to admit that nothing was complicated in the least. Not really. Archie had been clear the last time they actually spoke, no complex code to decipher anywhere in that conversation.

     Jughead willingly participated and jogged in P.E., and he hated to say that he enjoyed it. It was like the other night with B and V, just running and forgetting why he had started. Unlike most other things he’d tried over the years, he was most surprised to find that exercise cleared his rampaging thoughts better than anything else. How novel.

     “What’s going on with you and the girls?” Kevin asked, because he was in Jug’s class and wouldn’t leave him alone.

     “Does it matter?”

     “Uh, yes? I go out for one night and all of a sudden, my best friends are dueling it out?” Kevin’s eyebrows were raised. “I’d like answers.”

     Jughead stared straight ahead, the sand that he kicked off the track with his movements dusting his legs and serving as a nice distraction. “I’m sure they already gave you their side of it all; that’s good enough.”

     “Jughead!” Kevin said sharply. “I want to know why you’re angry! They aren’t _mad_ at you, they’re _worried_. We all are.”

     “Okay, how about this.” Jughead stopped. He faced Kevin with a heaving chest and flushed cheeks. “Me and Archibald Andrews almost fucked in a motel bed, more than once, over the summer, and when we got back to town he—” Kevin’s eyes were blown wide, jaw hung open. “It’s over, okay?” Jughead left Kevin standing there and it felt pretty damn good.

* * *

 

     _Jughead wasn’t a romantic, not by any means, but if he happened to stare at Archie at random intervals or jostle his arm in place of a hand-hold as they drove, Jughead wouldn’t admit to it. It’s just that he could still feel the press of Archie’s lips on his, fingertips ghosting his skin, and he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t want to, honestly. Archie would respond with a hand curled at the base of Jughead’s neck, if only for a second, to gently twist a curl between his fingers, and Jughead was more than a little disgusted that he leaned into the touch every time._

_But for the past couple miles, the last that would bring them back into Riverdale, Archie hasn’t touched him, hasn’t really so much as gifted a glance Jughead’s way, and he was feeling sort of worried, sort of annoyed._

_“What’s up with you?” Jughead asks, after it becomes too obvious._

_“What d’you mean?” Archie replies._

_“I mean why haven’t you looked at me since Augusta?”_

_“I’ve looked at you,” Archie denies, but he sounds more guilty than indignant._

_“You aren’t even looking at me_ now _!” Jughead snaps. “Did I do something?”_

_Archie does look at Jughead then. “No! No, you didn’t do anything; I—Jug, I just…” He isn’t sure how to articulate his thoughts. “I didn’t tell any of the guys that we were doing this.”_

_“Doing what?”_

_“Leaving town together.” Archie swallows imperceptibly. “I—told them I was visiting my mom in Chicago for the summer.”_

_“I’m not exactly shocked here,” Jughead says. He doesn’t know why Archie’s acting so flighty. “Should I be? Your buddies aren’t my biggest fans, Arch’.”_

_“That’s what I’m saying.” Archie shoves a frustrated hand into his hair. The one which grips the steering wheel is wound so tight it’s almost white and he goes on to pull over. Jughead waits. “We… You and me… The stuff we did on this road trip can’t keep happening when we get home.”_

_Jughead doesn’t know how to describe the feeling other than a loss of air and a sense of numbness. Absolutely nothing. It reminds him of when his mother sat him down and said that she was leaving town, she just couldn’t take F.P. or this bat-shit town anymore. He knows he should be upset, but it’s almost like he saw this coming so clearly in his subconscious that he can’t feel surprise, or anything at all._

_“You’re ashamed of it,” he says. It isn’t a question, it’s a statement. “This whole time, all that bullshit you kept spewing about me—you and me, being something special—you’re a liar.”_

_“Jughead, no—”_

_“No? Then give me a reason why you wouldn’t want your teammates, our classmates to know about those motels, Archie!” Archie’s mouth opens and closes, but he can’t find the words. “Tell me why I trusted you not to do the same thing to me that my parents have done since I was 10.”_

_“This is nothing like that!” Archie says loudly, following Jughead as he jumps out of the truck and down to the pavement._

_“Oh, yeah? Lies about caring about me, turning around to stab me in the back because I’m not worth anything to you? Like_ you _made me believe, as if I’d been the one begging to go on this fucking trip in the first place!” Jughead is nearly yelling, but he frankly can’t give a rat’s ass. He goes to yank his bag from the bed of the truck._

 _“As if I was the one who showed up at your house like some kind of shitty rom-com because_ I’m _a closeted fag who needs to be loved.” Jughead’s eyes burn with tears he knows he won’t ever let himself cry in front of Archie. “You’re a liar. Like I’d want anybody to know about this anyway.”_

_“Jughead, come on,” Archie tries. He even dares to reach for Jughead, as if he still has the right. “Please understand.”_

_“I’m pretty sure I got it, Arch’. I’m trailer trash, right? Your friends would kick you out of their letterman gang if they realised who you really are?” Jughead hoists his bag over his shoulder. “Well, don’t worry your pretty little head. I won’t tell anyone what we did this summer,” he says sarcastically. “And I keep my promises.”_

* * *

 

     Maybe he’d been a little harsh. Kevin hadn’t been trying to upset him and it had still ended with Jughead chewing him out as though that were the intention. Jug stared up at his ceiling, hands settled against his abdomen, and tried to breathe evenly. Whenever he needed to calm down, he did this to tether himself back to the ground. In. Out. Slow and steady.

     And it was working, as it normally did. He was beginning to see that yes, while his friends’ butting into his personal business made him want to scream, to many people that’s what friends were for. You know, listening, giving advice, hugging and whatever. It wasn’t like that was a new concept; Betty had always been that person for him. Jughead guessed that this time around was different because it wasn’t what he was used to. It wasn’t his parents being their expected shitty selves, or a long night where he missed his sister more than anything and could feel it like a vice tightened around his esophagus. It was someone new, who he’d (against all signs shrieking for him to absolutely not) let into his life and, despite himself, his fucking heart. And so it sucked ass, it hurt like hell—but he would keep going, because he always did.

     That’s what his ‘logical brain’ told him. Another part of him, however, had spent the days since the summer picking at the wounds in his heart, scratching raw the scabs of loss and anger and heartbreak and resentment until they began to bleed all over again, as if they’d never stopped to begin with. He just wanted it to be fucking over, you know?

     Ever since he could remember, even when he was little, Jughead had always had the inkling that nothing mattered. He cared more for his sister than himself, but knew deep down that they would all disappear anyway. Maybe not now, or tomorrow, but they would return to the earth they’d come from and nothing that had happened or hadn’t happened could do a damn thing to change it. So what difference did it make if he poked the places his dad had bruised, or cut his ankles with his mom’s razor? It’s just blood. It’s just nothing.

     That’s why Betty invited him for dinner so often, really, he knew, or why if Jughead was in a particularly grumpy mood she would kiss his cheek an extra time or text him an extra joke that she ‘just knew he would love.’ Why Veronica dragged him to the shopping mall on an afternoon that she knew Jughead would use to just be alone. Why Kevin didn’t bring up sexuality so much, because he was well aware of Jughead’s dad and his homophobic, piece-of-shit views of anyone different.

     Jughead ran his hands over his face. It wasn’t that he wanted to be dead, physically and totally. Being six feet under didn’t sound too good, even despite all that had happened. He was going to get out of Riverdale, but not in a coffin.

     So he told his friends this when they came over to check on him. Their knocks were more than a little tentative, and Jughead was exhausted from hours of contemplation, but he got up and let them into the tiny shack he called home. He told them the story of the road-trip—okay, maybe not every excruciating, (hardly) raunchy detail—and they listened, they gave some advice, they hugged, whatever.

     “Can I kick his ass?” Ronnie asked, her eyes shining.

     “Oh, no way,” Jughead said. “If anyone were going to kick the daylights out of Archibald Andrews, it’d be me.” He let out some air and shrugged. “But I don’t even want to waste the energy.”

     “Jughead Jones, the bigger man?” Kevin said with raised brows.

     “In more ways than one, I’m sure,” Jug rejoined. “And besides,” he added, over their laughter, “I’m better off than him in the long run anyway.”

     “How so?” Betty enquired.

     Jughead put an arm around her waist. “I have you guys. I can count on you to be there even when I’m the worst. Andrews doesn’t have that. His friends would hate him if they knew what he was.” Jughead went quiet, really thinking about that. The boy who would do anything to keep his friends, even throw away what he and Jug could’ve had… Archie didn’t even have friends, not real ones like the ones Jughead had surrounding him now. He looked at them all. “Without you guys, I’d be…”

     Betty squeezed his hand, her other holding Ronnie’s. “We know.”

     “I could use a stack of waffles right about now,” Kevin piped up after a few moments’ silence.

     “Actually, let’s try something new for a change,” Jughead suggested. “There’s a diner not too far out of town.” He grinned at his friends. “Who’s driving?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you liked this or took something from it, whatever it may have been. Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Riverdale or this poem


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